12 Blogs That Will Violate Your Expectations | The Concept of Motivation

If our ancestors expanded all of their energy, they wouldn’t have enough energy to respond to an immediate threat.

Josh Kaufman, author of The Personal MBA, refers to this as Conservation of Energy. He explains in his book, “We’ve evolved to avoid expending energy unless absolutely necessary.”

Years ago, humans needed to always have gas left in the tank to respond to immediate threats. Today, that gas isn’t needed because most of us are not facing life or death situations constantly. This is where it helps to understand the concept of motivation.

How can we motivate ourselves to take action, even if it’s against our natural tendencies? The solution–violate our expectations as to what our mind believes is possible.

For example, you’re in a job right now that’s just OK. You’re making enough money to pay the bills. But overall, what you think about Monday through Friday is getting to the weekend. This doesn’t necessarily stress you out; it’s something you accept.

Now, imagine you switched lives for a few days with a successful entrepreneur. This entrepreneur ran a business that was on auto-pilot and generated thousands of dollars a day. It required you work two hours a day from anywhere in the world.

What would happen? Your expectations would be violated. When you go back to your old routine, your “OK” job becomes an immediate threat and you’re motivated to act.

Since there’s no entrepreneur who’s willing to switch lives with you, you must violate your expectation in other ways. This is where I find blogs so helpful. Reading about how others achieve remarkable things, helps to violate your expectations. In turn, your mind is constantly expanding what it believes is possible, and as a result, you no longer need motivation to act.

Now you understand the concept of motivation, I want to share with you the blogs who have helped violate my expectations as to what’s possible. If you have any others, please share them in the comments.

Tynan – Tynan has one of the most interesting stories of any blogger I’ve read. He made a lot of money from poker. Bought a lot of stuff. Sold it all. Now lives out of a backpack while traveling the world.

Derek Sivers – Derek sold his business C.D. baby for $22 million and now spends his days learning

Tim Ferriss – Worked a 4 hour work week, generating $80,000 a month. Become a bestselling author, twice.

The Points Guy – Awesome blog on earning miles. The Point’s Guy has earned over 550,000 this year.